Home run king Barry Bonds is being tried on charges he lied to a federal grand jury when he said he never knowingly took steroids. Follow Mercury News reporter Howard Mintz’s account of the trial in this live blog from the San Francisco courtroom.

8:39 a.m.: Bonds’ one-time orthopedic surgeon to take the stand

The Barry Bonds perjury trial is about to resume with the testimony of Dr. Arthur Ting, the slugger’s onetime orthopedic surgeon. He will be followed to the stand today by Kathy Hoskins, Bonds’ former personal shopper, and Don Catlin, former head of the UCLA Olympic lab and a leading anti-doping expert.

9:05 a.m.: Surgeon says he drew Bonds’ blood for Anderson

Arthur Ting, Bonds’ orthopedic surgeon, has corroborated one aspect of the testimony of Bonds’ estranged business associate, Steve Hoskins, who claimed to have approached the doctor about getting information on steroids on the slugger’s behalf. Asked whether he recalls a conversation with Hoskins in the spring of 1999, around the time Bonds had elbow surgery, Ting replied, “I recall one conversation where he asked me if I had any literature on the relationship between tendon injuries and steroids.”

Ting said he then supplied Hoskins with information on steroids. However, Ting testified that there was no discussion with Hoskins about Bonds and steroid use, and that he recalled just one instance he discussed Bonds with Hoskins and did not recall the topic.

Under cross-examination, Hoskins said he discussed his concerns about Bonds and steroid use as many as “50” times with Ting. When pressed on that by Bonds’ lawyer, Allen Ruby, who asked whether he was “sure” about all those conversations, Hoskins replied, “Yeah.”

Ting also is testifying that he met with Bonds’ former personal trainer numerous times, and drew Bonds’ blood for testing at Balco. In one instance, Ting testified that he remembers one occasion at Bonds’ home when he drew blood for Anderson. The trainer and Bonds were there, and he testified: “I heard Barry say to Greg, “Don’t say anything,” or something like that.”

Asked by prosecutor Jeff Nedrow, Ting said he did not know exactly what Bonds meant.

9:15 A.M.: Surgeon says he never discussed steroid use with Bonds

Arthur Ting, Bonds’ doctor, also mentioned that Bonds made some reference to Barry Bonds’ father, Bobby, in the private exchange with Greg Anderson. But asked if he ever discussed steroid use directly with Bonds, Ting said, No.

Ting is now being cross-examined by Bonds’ lawyer, Cris Arguedas. She immediately jumps on the discrepancy between Ting and Hoskins’ testimony about how many conversations they had about steroids, asking Ting how many times they discussed that topic: once, Ting replied (Far less than the 50 Hoskins claimed).

Arguedas is now walking Ting through his resume as a sports surgeon, handling everybody from Tiger Woods to Joe Montana, and serving as orthopedic surgeon for teams such as the San Jose Sharks, 49ers and Oakland Raiders.

Responding to a question, Ting also confirms he has prescribed corticosteroids to Bonds for treatment in the past (the defense will argue it is common for athletes to receive that treatment, which includes steroids in pain relief).

9:23 a.m.: Surgeon Ting says he only discussed steroids with Hoskins one time

Arthur Ting, Bonds’ orthopedic surgeon, does not know it, but he’s taking a sledgehammer to the testimony of Steve Hoskins, Bonds’ former business partner.

Hoskins had been adamant that he discussed his concerns about Bonds’ steroids use with Ting many times. But Bonds’ lawyer Cris Arguedas is stressing Ting’s testimony today that they only had one generic exchange about steroid information, and that Bonds’ steroid use was never a topic of conversation.

Did “Stevie” ever tell you he wanted to get information on steroids so he could get back to Bonds about it, “Did that ever happen?” Arguedas asked.

“No,” Ting replied.

9:38 a.m.: Surgeon says Bonds feared needles

Through her questioning, Bonds lawyer Cris Arguedas is trying to undercut one of the toughest perjury charges against Barry Bonds: that he lied about ever being injected with anything by anyone other than his personal doctor (prosecutors allege Anderson regularly injected Bonds with steroids).

Ting acknowledged that Bonds feared needles so much he had to give the big slugger novacaine beforehand. “Barry Bonds has a very strong dislike of needles,” Arguedas asked. “Correct,” Ting replied.

Ting also testified that he was aware one of Bonds’ other trainers, Harvey Shields, was an advocate of flaxseed oil. Bonds told the grand jury he thought one of the creams he was getting from Anderson was flaxseed oil, which has been mocked by the government.

Arguedas then returns to her best ammunition again.

“Did you and Stevie talk about steroids 50 times?” she asked.

No, Ting replied.

9:47 a.m.: Surgeon turning out to be a good witness for the defense

Arthur Ting, Bonds’ orthopedic surgeon, is the government’s witness. But he’s turning out to be a fantastic defense witness.

Showing records that Ting prescribed corticosteroids for Bonds to treat postsurgery effects and inflammation, including an instance for shoulder pain in 2002 when he was given Prednisone, Arguedas moves to all the side effects of prescription corticosteroids. She basically went down Kimberly Bell’s checklist:

One is acne? Yes, Ting said.

And bloating? Yes, Ting said.

And weight gain? Yes, Ting said.

And mood swings? Yes, Ting said.

And another can be decreased sexual desire?

Correct, Ting said.

Prosecutors allege that those physical changes, which Bell accounted for her in her testimony, are attributable to Bonds use of anabolic steroids.

Prosecutor Jeff Nedrow is now trying to rehabilitate his witness, Arthur Ting, Bonds’ doctor. In an attempt to counterract the apparent conflict between Ting’s testimony (never discussed Bonds and steroids with Steve Hoskins, and generally discussed steroids once) and Steve Hoskins’ testimony (they talked about Bonds and steroids 50 times), Nedrow suggests Ting simply may have forgotten those conversations.

“You don’t know one way or another, do you?” Nedrow asked.

“No,” Ting replied.

In addition, Ting acknowledged that the type of serious elbow injury Bonds suffered in 1999, which included tendon damage, can be caused by steroids. It’s “possible,” he said.

10:08 a.m.: Surgeon ends testimony, Kathy Hoskins next

Bonds’ lawyer Cris Arguedas gets another crack at Arthur Ting, Bonds’ doctor. And she walks Ting, point by point, through all of Steve Hoskins’ examples of what he claims he discussed with Ting about Bonds’ steroid use.

Discuss specific steroids such as Winstrol? Ask Ting to check on steroids so he can get back to Bonds? Whether steroids can be injected in the same place repeatedly? Talk about concerns about Bonds’ steroid use?

All no, Ting testified.

Prosecutor Jeff Nedrow tries once more with Ting, trying to get him to concede he may not remember all of the conversations with Hoskins. “It’s possible,” Ting said.

Ting has just finished his testimony. The next witness is Kathy Hoskins, Bonds’ former personal shopper who purportedly will say she saw Bonds get injected by Anderson once.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston is clearly troubled by the conflict between Ting’s testimony and Steve Hoskins’, and is grilling prosecutors about whether they knew about some of the conflicts beforehand outside the presence of the jury.

There are open hostilities before U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, as Bonds lawyer Cris Arguedas and prosecutor Jeff Nedrow are interrupting each other and quarrelling over the defense’s allegations that prosecutors have played fast and loose about providing information they are obligated to turn over that would reveal evidence exculpatory to the defendant.

Hard to say what Illston is going to do about all this, but the government has some egg on its case this morning. Nedrow even conceded at one point that Steve Hoskins had been “impeached heavily” by Arthur Ting’s testimony

10:55 a.m.: Kathy Hoskins taking the stand

Kathy Hoskins is now taking the witness stand. The government can only hope she fares better as a witness than her brother, Steve.

11:04 a.m.: Kathy Hoskins introduced Bell to Bonds

Kathy Hoskins, bespectacled, hair in long braids and wearing a tie, cuts a casual figure on the stand. She describes how they knew each other in childhood, and she even asked him to her high school Sadie Hawkins dance. Did you go, prosecutor Matt Parrella asked. “Yeah,” she said emphatically, even prompting a chuckle from Bonds.

Hoskins testified she met Kimberly Bell (who was “dating the same guy” at the time) and introduced her to Bonds, as Bell testified earlier this week. Now she is discussing how she became Bonds’ personal shopper in around 2001. “I can shop for you better than you can shop for you,” she said she told Bonds. She handled the task until about February 2003, eventually adding packing for his road trips to his duties.

Kathy Hoskins has quickly gotten to the heart of why she’s a government witness. She testified she’d always see Greg Anderson, Barry Bonds’ former personal trainer, around all the time, often “milling around” when she was at Bonds’ house and packing for him.

She then described one occasion, at some point in 2002, when all three of them were in Bonds’ bedroom, and “Barry was like, “let’s do it right here.” “Greg was like, here?” and then Bonds said, “This is Katie, she’s my girl, she won’t say anything.” She testified that Bonds lifted his shirt and was “shot” in the “belly button” by Anderson with a syringe. Her testimony, rapid fire, quotes Bonds as saying it was just “a little somethin, somethin, ” “can’t detect it,” “before I go on the road.”

Hoskins testified that there was no discussion about the incident.

Bonds lawyer Cris Arguedas has now begun her cross-examination of Hoskins. She asked whether Kathy Hoskins has discussed the trial with Steve Hoskins, and she said she had not.

Through her questioning, Arguedas is trying to show that Kathy Hoskins, by the time she talked to federal agents about Bonds in 2006, was aware that Bonds had exiled her brother in 2003 and accused Steve Hoskins of stealing from him (Kathy Hoskins stopped working for Bonds in 2003 as a result of the falling out between the slugger and Steve Hoskins). And the questioning appears designed to show that sister teamed up with brother to target Bonds.

But Hoskins just doesn’t bite, saying it was not her idea at all to recount the episode when she saw Bonds “get shot up.” It was Steve Hoskins, she said, who told the feds to talk to his sister because he knew about the Bonds-Anderson incident. “He threw me under the bus,” Kathy Hoskins said of her brother. “That’s why I’m here.”

Hoskins testified that she told her brother she saw Bonds get injected “the day it happened.” But she had no plans to run to the government with the information.

12:09 p.m.: On cross-examination, Kathy Hoskins sticks to story

Bonds lawyer Cris Arguedas has just finished her cross of Kathy Hoskins. She made a little headway on the argument that Hoskins may have coordinated a bit with her brother, Steve, on their testimony, and that it occurred while she was working for her brother in 2006. But Arguedas made no headway in getting Kathy Hoskins to budge off her story that she saw Barry Bonds get injected once by Greg Anderson, and had no idea what it was he was receiving. “I didn’t know it was steroids,” she said, often removing her glasses and wiping her eyes with a tissue. “I didn’t know what it was.”

For the prosecution’s purposes, it may not matter what it was. Bonds, in one count of perjury, is charged with lying to a grand jury about whether he was ever injected by anyone other than his personal doctor.

12:39 p.m.: Anti-doping leader in sports takes stand

Kathy Hoskins, Bonds’ former personal shopper, finished up her testimony, tearfully answering the final questions from prosecutor Matt Parrella.

“Are you testifying here just to back your brother Steve up?” the prosecutor asked.

“Absolutely, not,” Hoskins replied, starting to sob. “I was put in the middle of it.”

Don Catlin, an anti-doping leader in sports, has now taken the stand. He is expected to testify on his role in testing a sample of Barry Bonds at the UCLA Olympic lab that showed up positive for steroids. The test was taken in the 2003 Major League Baseball testing program, and retested by the government, through the lab, in 2006. Prosecutor allege it shows Bonds was using newfangled steroids from Balco in 2003, but the defense maintains it supports Bonds’ contention that he did not know what he was taking from trainer Greg Anderson at that time.

1 p.m.: Anti-doping guru now on the stand

Back to the dry stuff. Don Catlin, a guru of anti-doping in sports, is explaining the origins of the UCLA Olympic testing lab, and its establishment as a leading center for testing athletes. Catlin is now moving to the lab’s first peek at a vial of THG, Balco’s infamous “the clear,” in 2003. He testified that it took about “eight Phds” to figure out what the substance was, and that it was a newfangled steroid.

Bonds allegedly tested positive for THG in a 2003 drug test.

1:17 p.m.: Testimony on doping and yams

The Barry Bonds trial just had a PBS moment. The testimony of leading anti-doping expert Don Catlin has educated the courtroom on the fact that lots of yams are used to manufacture large doses of testosterone. The testimony has yet to connect the yams to Barry Bonds.

The trial has broken for the day, and will resume Monday with the continued testimony of anti-doping expert Don Catlin, the government’s final live witness. Barry Bonds grand jury testimony is then expected to be read to the jury. Depending on whether the defense calls any witnesses, the trial could reach closing arguments by Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston told the jurors: “We’re on track to finish very soon.”

Violent police encounters in California last year led to the deaths of 157 people and six officers, the state attorney general’s office said Thursday in a report that provides the first statewide tally on police use-of-force incidents.